is a talking golden
palomino horse. He lives with architect Wilbur
Post (Alan Young) and his new wife, Carol
(Connie Hines) who discovered a horse (Ed) left
by the previous owners in the backyard stable.
Mister Ed refused to talk to anyone but Wilbur
and explained he could always talk but until
then he just hadn't felt like speaking. When
anyone else walked into the stable Ed quickly
turned silent. Ed's first words to Wilbur were
"HOW NOW BROWN COW." Ed did talk to others but
it was rare. On one occasion, Ed talked to a boy
at the kiddy park pony ride; and another time
Ed, disguised as a zebra, told a little boy not
to believe his scoutmaster's zoo lecture that
zebras were smarter that horses. Over time Ed
has revealed the following reasons why he speaks
to Wilbur:

-
Because, inside, you're all horse.;

- Because
you love animals. Because you trust them;

- I got
tired of talking to parrots, and you were
the next step up;

- Because
you're the only one I like well enough to
talk to, Wilbur;

- I only
talk to you and dumb animals.

When not talking to Wilbur, Mister Ed keeps busy
with his hobbies, among them writing and women.
Ed once wrote a book about his life called
Love and the
Single Horse, or The True Adventures of a
Palomino Playboy. An excerpt
follows:

"I will never
forget my first love, Yvette. She was only a
little French filly, but Ooh, la, la! A kiss
from her would melt your horseshoes. And what
a shame...she had so many curves, her saddle
kept falling off!"

Some of Mister Ed's
love interests included Chiquita, the Spanish
filly; Daphne, a western movie star filly;
Fatima, a foreign spy filly; Miss February, the
Playhorse calendar filly, Flossy, the
chestnut filly with great legs; Francesca, the
Italian filly; Fujiyama, the Japanese filly,
Gigi, a French filly; Flashaway, the pin-up
filly; and Ilsa, Suzette, and Lady Linda.

Although, it
may appear that the outspoken Mr. Ed is a
well-rounded horse about town, he does have his
phobias and vulnerabilities. They included
water, fat men with whiskers, cockatoos, cats,
prowlers, wooden carousel horses, and heights
(he inherited a fear of heights from his
grandfather who fell off a cliff while chasing a
filly).

TRIVIA NOTE:

The series MISTER ED/SYN/CBS/1961-66 was
conceived by Arthur Lubin, who directed the
Francis the Mule movies produced by
Universal Pictures. The series was based on
twenty-eight short stories written by Walter
Brooks about a talking horse named Mister Ed. In
the original stories, Mister Ed recited Hamlet,
spoke Latin, had a fear of spies and drank until
he got drunk. His owners Wilbur and Carlotta
Pope lived in Mount Kisco, New York; and Wilbur
worked at the architectural firm of Lamson,
Camphire, Leatherbee & Wallet. B-western cowboy
star Allan "Rocky" Lane provide the voice of
Mister Ed on the TV series. Mister Ed was
actually a horse named Bamboo Harvester foaled
in 1949 in El Monte, California. His parents
were The Harvester (Sire), a Saddlebred owned
by Edna and Jim Fagan; and Zetna, (Dam) who was
sired by Antez, an Arabian imported from Poland.
[per the Palomino Horse Association]. The
talented Bamboo Harvester was able to open
doors, untie knots, wave a flag, answer the
phone and write notes with a large pencil. On
May 21, 1997 an original set of Mr. Ed's
horseshoes, circa 1961 were placed on the
auction block of Sotheby's Entertainment
Memorabilia auction for $8-10,000. In a "Then &
Now" interview (People Weekly 7/17/95 p.
44) Alan Young recalled "Ed was in show business
two weeks when they changed his name and
castrated him. Happens to many of us," he
chuckled." Psst! It's not true
that if you play the MISTER ED theme song
backwards you hear a satanic message. Grow Up!